The DC-10 ended-up being a reliable airplane, but its early crashes damaged its reputation heavily, and the handling of these issues by MD was poor.

Commercially, MD never completely recover, and was absorbed by Boeing in the 90ies. (To be honest, it's not the only factor, you have also the L1011 competition and the fact a trijet was somewhat of an evolutionary dead end).

Boeing is much larger, and much stronger it can probably cope with it, but it will be a hit on their best selling aircraft. It's basically the 737 that finances the new 777 or 787, costly programs not certain to recoup design costs (same with Airbus, the A320 is basically financing the A380 failure). At the same time, part of the 737 market is a bit captive with the biggest low cost companies (Southwest, RyanAir) using it unlikely to switch.